


l'orange sanguine

by smithens



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Anachronistic Fruit, Canon Era, Ficlet, Hand Feeding, M/M, Oranges, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 14:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9904445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: With Lesgle nearby, Joly observes Combeferre as he handfeeds Enjolras a blood orange.





	

“Surely it isn’t all so arduous as that, Jolllly.”

Joly squints at Lesgle in a manner which he hopes exhibits his excessive forbearance, finds that Lesgle is as always grinning so stupidly at his pun that he cannot possibly be genuinely annoyed with him. As an apology for his rant, he passes him a slice of sanguine orange. (His own burst.)

Several paces away, seated in the grass, Combeferre, huddled over a paper of some sort, breaks a segment of his own orange and presses one half of it at Enjolras’s lips. Enjolras accepts it, smiles, and Joly feels as though he has witnessed something he weren’t meant to, like walking in on a mistress with another man.

…Or perhaps not so drastic.

Still, he cannot look away, somehow, at this display of - affection? - even as he knows Lesgle is patiently waiting to be chastised for his wit.

After a pause: “that was terrible,” says Joly, even if deep down he is fully cognizant of the comment’s hilarity. He tears his eyes away from his nearby friends to watch Lesgle’s lips, instead. They are stained pink, and so is the top of his stock: it was pale, now it is blushed.

“So your new sister-in-law is an _Ardennaise_. What is the matter with that?”

“The problem is not with Ardennes, you fool, it’s that she understands nothing about Privas, hailing from so far no-”

He stops himself, in good timing, and starts grinning at the look of exaggerated offense upon his friend’s face. Of course, Lesgle immediately hence bursts into laughter, curling his legs to his chest and rolling onto his back as though he hadn’t gained a rash from doing the same thing so often the previous spring.

Joly looks at him: his threadbare coat, finally seasonally appropriate; his now-dry but still-pink collar, his shiny head, sans hat; his stockinged feet. His wide smile and squinting, happy green eyes. He presses his palm to Lesgle’s knee and says nothing: sometimes jokes don’t require any explanation.

Across from them, Combeferre looks over, and this time Joly catches his eye.

Combeferre nods at him like he had asked a question - perhaps he did - with the merest hint of a smile at his lips, and then turns away to lie down beside Enjolras, who himself had settled down to read around the same time Lesgle keeled backward from mirth.

Sometimes emotions don’t require any explanation, either.

**Author's Note:**

> notes:
> 
> i) the kind of orange i have in mind didn't exist during the summer of 1829, but as we all know, enjolras can see (and eat) the future like it already happened.  
> ii) in english: 'arduous' / 'Ardennes' = in french: 'ardu' / 'Ardennes'
> 
> thanks for reading <3


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